


Christmas in Vegas (En, Nocte Venit Media)

by marcicat



Series: Send Somebody [2]
Category: Burn Notice
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-06 10:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcicat/pseuds/marcicat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fiona and Sam visit Nate at Christmas and find more than they expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas in Vegas (En, Nocte Venit Media)

**Author's Note:**

> The Latin bit of the title is (should be) 'It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.' In this universe, Michael’s a pagan god, Jesse’s the antichrist, and there’s a kitten somewhere, but none of that’s really important to this story.

**Earlier**

_“This is maybe not the best time.”_

Michael rolled his eyes.  He’d been trying that excuse for years, and look where it had gotten him.  Calling his brother two days before Christmas to “explain” that their Mom wanted them to have family time, and Nate was about to have visitors whether he wanted them or not.  

Still, if Nate was going for normal, he could make an effort too.

“Look, I know it’s right before Christmas, and I’m sure you and Rachel are busy.”  (With what, he had no idea.  Nate was more closed-mouthed than most spies about what he did with his time in Vegas.)  “But it’s either us or Mom.  She was looking at airline tickets online this morning.”

There was a choking sound from Nate’s end.   _“I thought you couldn’t leave Miami.”_

“Thanks for reminding me.  Yeah, Sam and Fi are all packed.  It’s no good if I leave, and Jesse says Vegas ‘feels weird.’”  

 _“I’m sure,”_ Nate said, sounding one hundred percent serious.   _“Fine.  When do they leave?”_

Michael paused.  Then he said, “Half an hour ago.”

**Now**

“Are you sure this is the right place?”  Sam gave the building a dubious once-over.  “From what Michael said, I wasn’t expecting something so…”

“Upscale?” Fiona asked.  She’d been thinking the same thing.  ‘Classy’ didn’t quite encompass Nate’s apartment building.  ‘Ritzy’ might not be out of line.  It was a far cry from the loft, to say the least.

She and Sam shared a long look.  “Yeah,” Sam said.  “Sure.  Let’s go with that.”  

They stared at the building some more.  She was relatively confident that Nate hadn’t gotten involved in anything too criminal to get the funds it would take for a place like this.  Relatively confident didn’t mean she wasn’t happy she had a gun in her handbag.

“Let’s go say hi.”  If Nate was involved with something bad, they were damn well going to get him uninvolved before they went back to Miami.  She wasn’t putting any more problems on Madeline’s plate.

They heard him before they saw him.  Four stories up, and the door was open.

“No, it’s not happening.  There’s too much crazy in the air already.  You want to race, you wait till you’re out of Vegas.”

Whatever the reply was, it was too quiet to make out.  Nate’s response was not.  

“Because I’m not spending Christmas day bailing people out of jail!  Can’t you at least wait till New Year’s?”

Someone stepped out into the hall and looked right at them.  She called back into the apartment, “Nate, it’s the people you were expecting!”

After that, there was no reason not to walk right in, so they did.  Into chaos.  The apartment was packed with people.  She counted fifteen concealed weapons before Nate appeared (and how had he gotten so far from the door?).  He had a small child on his back, who waved a lollipop at them.

“Hi guys,” Nate said.  He didn’t say ‘well, this is awkward,’ but she was pretty sure they were all thinking it.  “Come on in.”

“Big holiday party?” Sam asked, carefully surveying the room.

Nate shook his head.  “Not exactly.  A lot of our usual check-in folks have the day off, so it’s busier than usual.  A lot of travel in and out, that sort of thing.”

She nodded like she knew what he was talking about.  Next to her, Sam was eyeing the kitchen.  “I assume Michael told you to check up on me.  As you can see, we’re fine.  Do you need any help finding your hotel?”

Rachel slid up next to him.  “Nate,” she said.

He handed the child off to her and sighed.  “I’m sorry.  She’s my mother, I should be used to it.  She loves Rachel, loves the baby; for us, I guess that’s pretty good.”

Fiona eyed him carefully.  She didn’t want to interfere where she wasn’t wanted, but it wasn’t like she was unfamiliar with this particular Westen brand of family loyalty.  “She cares about the people who are closest to you.”  And then, since Nate was a lot like Michael, except willing to talk about his feelings without being in grave danger, she added, “Sometimes love’s not easy.”

Nate laughed.  “Truer words,” he said.  “Truer words.”

And then somehow they were drafted into washing dishes and serving plate after plate of food.  Despite Nate’s repeated offers to help them find their hotel, someone always managed to distract them from actually leaving.  She suspected it was happening on purpose, but couldn’t figure out why.  No one was asking any leading questions, and they kept volunteering information.

(For instance, Nate was apparently always willing to help a neighbor in need, and was able to both change a flat tire and salvage an overcooked turkey.  She’d think they were trying to marry him off if he wasn’t already married.)

It was nearly midnight when a frazzled looking Nate stepped into the kitchen with Rachel and stopped in surprise.  “Are you still here?” he asked.  Then he shook his head.  “Never mind.  We should get you back to your hotel.”

They made it as far as the elevator.  More accurately, they made it into the elevator and down two floors, and then all the lights went out and the elevator shuddered to a stop.  

“Crap,” Nate said.  Rachel laughed.

Fiona was pretty sure she had a flashlight somewhere in her bag.  Next to her, Sam said, “I’m no expert, but shouldn’t there be automatic emergency lights on in here?”

“We took them out for Solstice,” Nate said.  “There was a thing.”  She thought if she could see him, he’d probably be making some sort of vague hand gesture meant to encompass ‘things that were done on Solstice that involved electrical wiring.’  She had no idea what those things might be.  

Nate, seeming to sense their lack of understanding, added, “You know, the whole darkness, bring back the light theme.”  There was a long minute of silence.  

Finally, Rachel said, “Right.  Anyway, does anyone have a flashlight?”

“Here,” Fiona said, her fingers closing on it in the bottom corner of her bag.  It felt suspiciously light.  She remembered using them for a job a month or so ago.  “Oh.  No batteries; sorry.”

Sam cleared his throat.  “Maybe I shouldn’t be the one to say this, but — considering what you did in Miami, couldn’t you just… pray for help?”

“That was different,” Nate told them.  Rachel was laughing again.

“I’m serious.  First, there’s not that many beings who will respond to a call from Vegas.  Neutral territory goes both ways.  The two we’d be most likely to get would be Cayetano or Majella, but she’s handsy and he’s got a weird sense of humor.”

“Really handsy,” Rachel added.  “Plus, it’s Christmas Eve by now.  No need to take someone else’s Christmas miracle.  We’ve got this.”

“You can get an elevator door open by the light of a cell phone?” Nate asked.  “How come I didn’t know that about you?”

“Call Brian,” Rachel advised, already stepping up to the control panel.  “He hasn’t been here before for one of these.  Hopefully he’ll join up with the fire door crew; they always take forever.”

“This happens a lot?” Sam asked.

“Every now and then,” Nate said.  “We’re sort of only nominally on the grid in this building, and sometimes people have stuff to do that electricity would interfere with.  Usually we get a little more advance notice than this.”  

He said it like it was perfectly normal, and she almost told him ‘I know that trick.’  It was the same way Michael would say things like ‘So I’ll be going after the psycho terrorist without backup now.’  

Instead, she found herself holding his phone (the one being used as a flashlight) for Rachel, while he produced a second phone from somewhere and started a series of calls.  It sounded like he was coordinating some sort of power outage response.  “Why does Nate have two phones?” she asked Rachel.  

“Well, he can’t do the calls and provide a light source with just one,” Rachel said reasonably.  

Fiona sighed.  “Of course.”

Ten minutes later, they were out of the elevator.  (Rachel insisted it would have gone faster if she hadn’t been trying to make it fixable later on.)  The hallway was decorated with battery-powered lanterns; the doors to the stairs stood propped open.  All the other doors seemed to be open too, and people called greetings as they walked past.

There were a few teenagers lingering in the stairwell with phones; she kicked herself for not realizing until they’d made it all the way back to Nate’s floor that they were guarding the stairwell, or at least reporting on anyone who used it.  They were met at the door by the same woman who’d originally announced their arrival.  

“Merry Christmas Eve,” she said.  “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

If the previous floors had been well-lit, Nate’s was positively glowing.  Lanterns, candles, flashlights stood on end — and she was pretty sure she heard people singing Christmas carols somewhere down the hallway.  “Are you staying overnight?” the woman asked.

They could leave, but it was a lot of stairs back down to the ground floor.  She looked at Sam.  He shrugged.  “Sure, why not?”

(Fiona thought it was a toss-up whether Nate was irritated that they were sticking around, or relieved that they weren’t running for the hills.)  

“Great!” the woman said.  “You can help us with the protection beads.  I’m sure the electricity will be back on in plenty of time to get you on the road for your flight.”

It was Sam’s turn to sigh.  Probably because they hadn’t actually shared any information on when their flight was leaving.  Also, protection beads?  Nate’s friends were unusual, and coming from her, that was saying something.  She couldn’t say they seemed harmless, but certainly uninterested in harming Nate, or Rachel, and they could throw a good party.  

She thought Madeline and Michael could rest easy.  Even in Vegas, Nate was surrounded by family.  (They could figure out what to actually say about his family, to his family, on the flight home.)


End file.
